


Dapper

by Chanel_Pirate



Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, High Salt Content, Implied One-Sided Maxwell/Wilson, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Tags TBA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2019-08-27 04:49:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16695739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chanel_Pirate/pseuds/Chanel_Pirate
Summary: Now who was this dapper sonofabitch?





	1. Enchanté

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampireBarons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBarons/gifts).



 

 

 

 

 

 

Maxwell sometimes liked to wander the island at night.

 

He liked to see that everything was the way he liked it: that his clockwork darlings were as snappish and solid as they ought to be; that the spiders were multiplying as they should; and that the tentacles were still contained. And if a significant part of his nocturnal constitutionals was to feel Charlie about—in the starless sky, in the muted drone of the night—then that was his business.

 

The darkness here stuck, clung like cobwebs. It was latent even in daylight. She permeated it like a promise.

 

The question was a splinter in his mind: would she give him as wide a berth were he any less than King, bound to the board though he was? Would she be as sparing? Or would she get him as good as she got his pawns?

 

Maxwell reached a cliff and stared out at the mysterious sea through the dark. He didn’t know what lay beyond, and he doubted They would ever tell him. He wouldn’t be surprised if it just looped around to the start. Apart from Charlie’s whispers, the silence was a bated breath. He lit a cigar.

 

Then: a blinding flash of light. He turned around.

 

In the distance, crackling, churning, increasing in size, was a portal.

 

He stared.

 

How? He hadn’t arranged for a new arrival. Not yet.

 

His first instinct was that They had grown tired of him on the Throne. A quick metaphysical tug confirmed Their manacles on his limbs, on his mind.  Nothing could have happened to Higgsbury. He would have felt it.

 

Or would he? He didn’t tend to discover the limits of his power until he barrelled into them.

 

The portal continued its racket. He maintained his distance, and watched as it not so much emitted as spat out an object. As soon as it did, it quietened, and its unearthly blue glow began to dim.

 

By the time Maxwell’s eyes adjusted, the portal was almost extinguished. He was able to see its consignment. It was a man—long silver hair, elderly. He was getting to his feet, looking about as though he’d never seen land.

 

Also, he was stark naked.

 

Maxwell relit his cigar. This geezer wouldn’t last five minutes. He could already see Charlie drawing herself towards him, could hear her rumbling interest approach the boundary of the portal’s dying light.

  
  
Just then, he felt a strange pull at the back of his mind, filling him with a terrible rage that did not belong to him. He choked inhaling on his cigar. The man appeared to be looking directly at him, though that could not be possible. He was too far away in the darkness.

 

Charlie was getting excited now. The rumbling gave way to the roaring that meant she was about to claim a soul for the night. That another cycle was to begin. Maxwell grimaced in anticipation. It wasn’t going to be pretty; he could see just enough with Their sight to tell.

 

The last of the light went out. Charlie expanded into her domain, the queen of darkness, the embodiment of night, as her booming growls echoed and tore the eldritch silence in half, and there, she approached, rapid in her descent, the man vulnerable and bare in her path—

 

"Oh you can piss right the fuck off."

  
  
And Charlie did.

  
“And don't think I can't see you skulking over there."

  
  
The man marched off in the other direction, deeper into the darkness.

 

Maxwell only moved again when the cigar burned his fingers.

 

*

 

Maxwell flashed back onto the Throne. He watched Their tendrils wind before him, over him, a familiar weight on his wrists, the gramophone repeating the same old note. Here, his suit hung in tatters from his emaciated frame.

 

What did he just witness?

 

Amusement rose within him as he wondered whether this man, were he to take his place on the Throne, would just tell Them where to go, and that would be the end of that.

 

He laughed. They tightened around him in warning.

 

Would that it were that easy.

 

For the first time in countless years, he was curious.

 

He’d give it a few weeks. It wouldn’t do to get too invested in a false start.

 

Anything for a reprieve from the ragtime. He was so bored.

 

*

 

It was full moon, during which things tended to get a little strange. Maxwell appreciated this. It was a welcome break in the monotony, a rare state in which things could get unpredictable, even to him.

 

He could feel her, still, in the edges of moonlight shadows; subdued, impatient. He made his way through a graveyard—all tributes to her—to a forest. He would have been able to move through the thick undergrowth easily, even without Their vision. He pushed away a final branch. It made way to a clearing.

 

He looked up to greet a Spider Queen he’d spotted out of the corner of his eye—to find that he was looking at her decapitated head. It was mounted on a stick, black blood leaking from her mouth, onto the ground. All of her eyes were frozen open in fear.

 

Now this was strange.

 

It seemed that her colony had remained in the area. Spider Warriors hissed at him as he followed the trail of blood to a concentration of smaller spiders, clustered around—

 

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Maxwell thought.

 

Flanked by spiders, with one at rest in his lap, was the old man from earlier. He sat in a delicate, elaborate chair made of some pallid material. He was dressed in an elegant robe of what had to be spider silk. The overall effect in the moonlight was striking.

  
He hadn’t noticed Maxwell yet. At least, he had pretended not to.

 

He could only think to say what he would always say. At times, scripts proved themselves useful. He had to say something, of that he was sure.

 

“Say, pal...” Maxwell started, and drew a blank. He settled for punctuating it by pulling out a cigar and lighting it.

 

“You were the one waiting when I arrived. You are ruler of these lands?” said the man. He was absently stroking the spider in his lap, pulling graceful hands gently through its fur. The spider was purring.

 

The spider, Maxwell thought. Was purring.

  
  
He didn't feel a single ounce of fear coming off him. This rubbed him the wrong way. If some of it was the right way, he’d never tell.

 

He was definitely dapper.

 

“That’s indeed me, pal. And who are you?”

 

The man looked up at his curt reply, pinning him with his dark-eyed stare. Maxwell stood a little straighter. That strange pull in his mind was back. The man narrowed his eyes, as if deciding on something. Then he smirked.

 

“My name is Alexander von Brennenburg. I have travelled far. I was very important, once.”

  
  
He took a drink from a skull—an actual skull, this guy, Maxwell thought—posture perfect on that chair, which Maxwell almost startled to notice he'd fashioned from bones. It was almost nicer than the Nightmare Throne. Almost.

 

This stuck-up bastard thought he was holding court.

  
  
"Well, colour me impressed," he said, not intending to mean it, and failing. He decided to compensate with sarcasm. “And I’m the King of England.”

 

At this, Brennenburg raised an imperious eyebrow. Like he’d said something strange.

 

“I doubt that even His Majesty would have jurisdiction in your domain,” he spoke, slow, and his voice was really something special. “I intend no trouble. I am only passing through.”

 

Maxwell drew on his cigar and glared. “You seem to be troubling the locals.”

 

“Oh, that.” Brennenburg looked over at the Spider Queen’s decapitated head, then down at his spider, which let out a chirp. “I don’t think they much cared for how she was running things. I respect the equilibrium of nature.”

 

Unbelievable. Maxwell was about to turn and abandon this lunatic to enjoy his spider colony until the cows came home, when he spotted the colour of the liquid he was drinking.

 

That was either spider blood or Nightmare Fuel, or both. He wasn’t sure which was worse. Or what in all the hells he could be doing.

 

He must not have been subtle enough in his surprise.

  
  
"The magicks of your lands are quite interesting," said Brennenburg, who looked pleased with himself as he took another sip. A drop of black clung to his lips.

 

“Mind you don’t discover just how much,” Maxwell growled. “Being big cheese of the spiders won’t get you too far ‘round these parts, pal.”

  
  
Brennenburg didn’t even blink. “I look forward to discovering the possibilities. At your discretion, of course.”

 

This one. He was going to give this one a hard time.

 

“You’re damned right.” Maxwell drew himself to his full height. “Now, I have matters to attend to in my kingdom. I’d hope you’re not afraid of the dark.”

 

“No, not I.”

 

He’d been about to turn his back. He paused. “Then I’d make sure I had enough to eat, if I were you.”

 

Brennenburg smiled, indulgent. “I am humbled by your concern.”

 

“In that case,” Maxwell said and faltered, battling the realisation that he had failed to quit while he was ahead.

 

“I’ll be seeing you,” Brennenburg said, the dismissal clear in his voice.

 

If Maxwell hadn’t disappeared himself into the air in that moment, he would have probably smacked the smug grin right off his wrinkled face.

 

*

 

The Throne again. He stared blankly at the shadows stretching into the endless. Something writhed out of the corner of his eye. The quiet rang on.

 

What in damnation?

 

He tried to shake the image of Brennenburg under the full moon from his mind, legs crossed in his stupid bone chair as if he were born to sit there and torment him.

 

When that didn’t work, and his ridiculous eyes seemed to still bore into him, he decided he would allow himself to sulk awhile.

 

What would Charlie say? She had always been better at such things. That’s why he only had to show up with the magic tricks, and she would only have to smile at the audience for them to work. She had always been better at dealing with people.

 

Now she was so good at dealing with them that there was very little left of them once she was done.

 

But he had always been interested in people’s reactions: their applause, their wonder—the glitter of showbiz.

 

He tapped bony fingers on the Throne’s rigid armrest.

 

He grinned.

 

All he had to do was plan his next set, as he always had.

 

This Brennenburg fella wanted to discover some ‘magicks’? He’d show him what kind of abracadabra The Amazing Maxwell could conjure.

 

*

 

As time went by, Maxwell found himself conjuring, to be sure: reasons not to start breaking things. From his vantage point on the Throne, he watched the farce unfold.

 

He’d started off small, making basic resources scarce when he saw Brennenburg needed them. If he needed rocks, rocks disappeared. If he needed to build a fire, trees disappeared for miles around. If he hadn’t eaten for a while—oh, there went the food, and wouldn’t you look at that.

 

He had sidestepped the shortages as though they were nothing.

 

Maxwell responded by making everything equally scarce at the same time. An unsportsmanlike gesture at the best of times.

 

Brennenburg and his spiders pulled through without a scratch. It was as though he didn’t need to eat. As though he wasn’t afraid of the night. Of Charlie.

 

So Maxwell had brought everything back. Everything.

 

Together with the trees, he’d brought in more Treeguards. Brennenburg felled them without trouble, with the help of his Spider Warriors. Maxwell watched with disbelief as he accumulated an impressive amount of Living Logs. He’d brought in more tentacle creatures, and watched Brennenburg glare them into submission as he walked past.

 

He’d brought in more Tallbirds, more hounds, and watched as Brennenburg reached a peaceful understanding with the former, and an unbloody disinterest with the latter. But only after he’d made examples of a few.

 

He watched as Brennenburg brushed off every inconvenience, as he befriended pigs, whose labour and muscle he employed, and beefalo, who allowed him to mount them as his steeds. The pigs built him a stone bungalow, at his command, that remained watertight no matter how much he made it rain. All that did was make Brennenburg’s clothes stick to his body.

 

It was ridiculous.

 

He watched him eat monster meat from turncoat hounds with no harm befalling him. He watched him cultivate farms, fish, and cook; make dapper clothing using resources from comrades and foes alike, fallen in battle; and experiment at his leisure on dark objects and crafting materials alike as though he were an aristocratic sojourner summering at his country house.

 

Nothing seemed to shake him, not even when he ventured to study too many suspect mushrooms through consumption. He did things with the flora he never thought could be done. He made potions he could only guess at.

 

One day, Maxwell saw him come across a Ring Thing. He raised it in contemplation.

 

On another, Maxwell saw him run into the Wooden Thing. Brennenburg leaned over to inspect the runes, slowly tracing a finger over the nearest one, long hair falling into his face.

 

“Hmm… ‘Maxwell,’” he whispered, tasting the sound, and Maxwell shivered all the way over on the Throne.

 

That was it.

 

He decided to pay him a visit.

 

*

 

"I was wondering when you would show up."

 

When he appeared at Brennenburg’s base, the geezer was wearing his spider silk and furs, in repose by the fire, with what looked like a cup of tea.

 

He’d made some decent furniture out of reclaimed material, Maxwell noticed.

 

“I see you’ve been settling in,” Maxwell said, indicating their surroundings, the stone structure. Pigs and spiders milled about, seeing to their tasks, as the small spider that Alexander seemed to favour hissed at him from nearby. He could hear beefalo lowing.

 

“Certainly. Your kingdom is most hospitable, I’ve found.”

 

“You have, huh.”

 

Brennenburg quirked an eyebrow. “I’ve survived a few wars, in my time.”

 

The fire crackled.

 

Maxwell reached for a cigar, but didn’t light it.

 

“Just passing through, you said?” he asked through grit teeth.

 

“Most definitely.” Brennenburg stretched out his back, and Maxwell watched its arch. It was unfair. Brennenburg looked up from where Maxwell was fumbling with his cigar to catch his gaze, and smirked. “Apologies. Old bones, you see. Yes, I am but passing through. I have places to be, and besides, I wouldn’t want to abuse your hospitality.”

 

“Good to know. You wouldn’t want to get too comfortable, if you have places to be,” Maxwell said, and he could be forgiven for thinking that he’d get the last word this time.

 

Alas, in the split second before he could vanish himself, Brennenburg spoke.

 

“Your name is Maxwell.”

 

It was hard to breathe. “If you’re asking.”

 

“I am.” That sharp smile. “It is good to make your acquaintance, Maxwell. Would you like some tea?”

 

“What a kind offer. Get back to me when you have something stronger,” he somehow managed. “And now, I have a kingdom to run.”

 

Maxwell snapped off back to the Throne, leaving behind Alexander von Brennenburg and his silk and his tea and his furs with his bastard goddamned voice.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr @chanelpirate
> 
> Playlist with cover art by Vampbarons [here.](http://chanelpirate.tumblr.com/post/167053410603/dapper-a-maxwellalexander-fanmix-cover-art-from)


	2. Repartee

 

 

 

 

This guy was starting to get to him.

 

Not because Brennenburg had anything on him, Maxwell told himself.

 

Perhaps the novelty of having a new visitor had worn off. He had presided over long eternities from the Throne, after all, and They were no company at all. Most of his other active boards were host to the dull, the repetitive, the ever-dying, and worst of all: the promising ones, the disappointments, who kept losing their footing but a stone’s throw from the Throne.

 

Those would be the only times he would hear Them laugh.

 

It was a sound he did not care for.

 

Sometimes, he would get glimpses of Charlie—the real Charlie, her smile—like flashes of sun between leaves in a tree’s shadow. Sometimes, he thought he could feel shades of response when he would mutter into the night. That always had to be enough.

 

It had to be. It was about survival, all of it, for all of them. If that was what it would take, he would clutch at every scrap of what was left of her to sustain himself. He wondered what she would do in his position, what action she would take.

 

Speaking of her actions—not that Maxwell had managed to catch him out with the darkness, but Charlie seemed subdued around this Brennenburg. She couldn’t be stopped simply with profanity. He couldn’t think what it could be.

 

Something wasn’t right about him. He was one of the best contenders yet—if he could only get him through his damned Door—but it didn’t change that something was off. Something he couldn’t parse, beyond the fact that he obviously considered himself the bee’s knees.

 

It bothered him a little.

 

He thought of himself, and Charlie. He thought of the determination and steel patience he saw burning in Brennenburg, the twisted old thing.

 

All right, so he found his kingdom hospitable?

 

No, he couldn’t go easy on him, even if he wanted to. Up-and-coming as he was, tempting as it was. There were still some rules They imposed.

 

Although: he could play on his own terms. If he was clever about it. And no matter how clever They thought They were or Brennenburg thought he was, he was clever too.

 

Maxwell grinned.

  
  
He decided to make it harder.

 

*

 

Maxwell was at the end of his rope, and that was usually a sweet fantasy.

 

He’d brought winter early, but Brennenburg was prepared. He’d brought out more hounds and an inordinate amount of Pengulls, and Brennenburg dealt with it all in good spirits and swift action. He might as well have been on some winter retreat.

 

The only casualties were from among his many pigs. He wore the leathers of those who had been struck down, by the cold or by belligerents.

 

When Maxwell had sent the Deerclops after him and his camp, Brennenburg slew it with ease, with dark magic and aid from his spiders. He’d skinned it for its furs and velvet and fashioned them into regal finery. Its eye he’d added to his increasingly sinister apothecary.

 

He looked like an aged Viking warlord, surveying his kill in his furs and beefalo hat, covered in black blood and the Fuel.

 

It was a hell of a picture.

 

There was no damage to his stores or crops, which he’d managed to greenhouse, because of course he had.

 

Maxwell was fighting his suspension of disbelief. It was winning.

 

And then Maxwell brought down the night, for days at a time. He might have forgotten to replace a single candle in a sunlit room, for all the difference it made. He observed that sometimes, Brennenburg would wander into the darkness to retrieve something, and Charlie wouldn’t be provoked at all. He felt her confusion. And whenever he himself tried to view the man within the darkness, something shifted and caught like a curtain behind his mind’s eye, like trying to look down the wrong end of a telescope.

 

He cast about. How could he make it harder still? What could shake this man?

 

At some point he realised he was doing it less out of spite and more to see what Brennenburg did next. It was a gas.

 

He made it colder. He made the night longer. He watched as Brennenburg’s helpers stayed in more. Less got done.

 

Ah, that was it.

 

During a particularly long stretch of nightfall, he brought in a good amount of his clockworks. It was bending the rules, but one had to play the game.

 

He watched as the first thing Brennenburg did was to put out all light sources, before leading only his strongest pigs out to meet the threat in the dark. Even with Their sight, he couldn’t see what was happening but for an absence of movement, and a displacement of space. He could only hear clanking and pigs grunting and an odd, stabbing susurration. Not only could he not see it—it was as though his mind was unable to order it temporally.

 

Almost as though he were drunk, though that would have been an improvement in his books.

 

Maxwell brought back the dawn, frustrated. What he saw as the sun came up enraged him, before it satisfied him.

 

His beautiful clockworks all lay motionless. Brennenburg, not a hair out of place, was already taking them apart for their gears and machinery.

 

However.

 

Maxwell’s grin widened. Not only his own clockworks; all of Brennenburg’s pigs lay dead.

 

What would he do without most of his servants? Would he still be the big man now?

  
  
Time to get more hands-on, he thought. He’d always preferred showing to telling, after all.

 

Maxwell hummed in amusement and decided to hop over and say hello before he would sit down and daydream of all the ways he could finish Brennenburg off.

 

*

 

Maxwell appeared at the camp, wearing his most dapper winter wear, knee-high riding boots barely crunching into the snow before he froze in place.

 

He'd done something to the pigs.

 

The first thing he noticed was their strange ashen colour. The second was that they seemed to have imploded. Flesh hung in unusual configurations, fused to bone with gears and unfamiliar magic. They carried on in their usual tasks, as they always had. They were collecting and drying meat, tending to the greenhouses, and reinforcing stone fences as though their insides were not now outsides.

 

The sight would have unsettled a lesser man, but not him. No. Never.

 

Other than that, nothing had changed since last time.

 

He couldn't see Brennenburg anywhere.

  
  
He chomped on his cigar.

 

He reached out and conjured the good old Book. His fingers slipped along the Codex Umbra’s spine as he split his mind into several shadow puppets.

 

He didn't need physical reinforcement—what could Brennenburg possibly do to him, really? At this point, however, a minor display of status and power would not be remiss.

  
  
"Maxwell! How nice to see a friendly face," Brennenburg called out from directly behind him.

  
  
He almost bit his cigar in half.

  
  
"Listen here, pal. What's your deal?" he snapped. No-one got the jump on him.

 

“My deal?” his brow furrowed, and Maxwell noticed he was holding a half-dozen dead rabbits by their ears. Damn, he’d forgotten to decrease the rabbit population. They bred too fast. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Oh, and do call me Alexander.”

 

Was he kidding? Maxwell remained silent and looked him over in a way he hoped was intimidating—but wasn’t he dapper as ever. It was good to see sartolialism was alive and well in this joint. Brennenburg didn’t look out of place in the glittering snow.

 

He realised this was the first time he’d seen him face-to-face that he was on his feet rather than lounging about.

 

Brennenburg drew nearer, walking past him to the fire pit. “What brings you here to see the likes of me? You must be busy these days, what with the adverse weather conditions.”

 

Maxwell turned to intercept him when they were level. He stared him down. “I hope you haven’t been having difficulties.”

 

Brennenburg’s eyes trailed all the way down his body, then all the way up again to meet his look. His lips quirked. “My, aren’t you tall.”

 

Maxwell blinked, and the old bastard kept right on walking.

 

“You keep murdering my subjects.”

 

“They keep disturbing our peace,” Brennenburg said. Maxwell watched him as he knelt by the fire pit, bit off his glove, and pulled out a sharp blade. He began to skin the rabbits, in several economical, graceful moves. He was well-practiced; it took him no time at all to go from the first incision, to removing the pelt whole. He cast the furs into a neat pile, without looking. It was like watching an artist. “I hope all is well at your court.” He impaled the carcasses on a spit, one by one. Maxwell noticed he was left-handed. “Will you be staying for dinner?”

 

“I don’t think so, pal. This is just a courtesy call.”

 

“How kind,” Brennenburg said, balancing the spit over the fire. He got up to walk over to one of the shadow puppets, which he pretended to just notice. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced?”

 

He reached out his ungloved hand, and Maxwell, damned as he was, made the puppet take it, despite himself. Through the puppet, he could feel Brennenburg’s grip on his, warm and strong. Slightly sticky with blood.

 

“They’re silent types,” Maxwell remarked.

 

Brennenburg stretched up to squint into its impassive face. “I can see that. But there’s more to them, isn’t there?”

 

“Might be.”

 

“How interesting. This place is full of surprises.” Brennenburg turned his back to the puppet, facing him. “Did you know, for example, that the night here can last for days, seemingly at a whim? As a man of science, I find that very interesting indeed.”

 

Of course he had to be a bloody man of science.

 

“Isn’t it just,” Maxwell said to the fire, watching one of the pig monstrosities turn the spit. Further along, Brennenburg’s right-hand spider was glaring at him from across the way.

 

“Yes, and not only that,” Brennenburg continued. “Matter behaves differently here. It is manipulable in a way I’ve never before seen. It makes one think most creatively.”

 

“Nice to hear you’ve been having a good time.” Maxwell followed him with his eyes as he walked back to the bungalow’s front door.

 

“Oh, but we must always strive for better, mustn’t we?” Brennenburg turned and Maxwell realised he may have overdone himself with so many puppets, because sometimes they made him woozy, and that could be the only reason that he had imagined Brennenburg had winked at him. “Now if you don’t mind, I require some rest. Before too long, I will be able to move on from here.”

 

“Yeah, that’s swell. You and me both, pal. Enjoy your rabbits,” Maxwell said and without further ado, vanished himself, together with the puppets.

 

He wasn’t sure he minded the dismissal this time.

 

*

 

It was rare that Maxwell slept. He wasn’t sure as to the reason: whether it was because his body had been manipulated and whittled to Their liking to the point it didn’t need it; or because his stasis was such that he was almost incapable of it, tightly bound as his true body was; or, more likely, he no longer noticed when he was asleep due to his mind and projected body being active elsewhere. He just knew that it didn’t often happen, to his knowledge.

 

As such, dreams were scarce. It was nigh unheard of that he ever remembered any.

 

Which is why Maxwell found himself confused, lucid in sleep. He was sitting on the Throne. Of course this was where his imagination would take him. He had been there for so long he couldn’t remember anyplace else.

 

The sleeping, the dreaming: it must have had something to do with summoning the puppets, he thought, which was why he didn’t do it too often.

 

He heard a voice, and suppressed a groan.

 

“Full of surprises indeed,” murmured Alexander, wide-eyed, standing before him. His pale hair and furs stuck out like a sore thumb against the shadows. “What is that music? I rather like it.”

 

“It gets old after a while,” Maxwell said, unmoving. Not that he could move much.

 

“Don’t we all?”

 

Maxwell sighed. “Look, appreciate the company and all, but I’m asleep. I don’t have to think about you right now. You can scram.”

 

“I didn’t know you thought of me. I’m touched.” Alexander smirked.

 

“The hell you didn’t. Get out of my head. Now.” Maxwell was losing his patience. He tried to think him away, to direct the dream. To no avail.

 

“But were we always to stay in our own heads, how would we ever learn anything new?” He moved around the throne room, casting his eyes—those damned eyes—about Their shadows and tendrils stretching above them, reaching from the Throne, bleeding into yet distinct from the darkness. “There is more here. Much more. They are here, I can feel them. The night woman. The young scientist.”

 

Maxwell saw red. “Now who are you coming in here and—why I oughta—” He pulled at Their manacles, kicking out his feet in an attempt to stand, jerking his body forwards, to no effect whatsoever, struggling to get out there and fight, to do something.

 

But even in dreams, he was bound.

 

He slumped, empty. He would have wept, but he had run out of energy for that long ago. And besides, this sonofabitch was still here, putting his nose where his business wasn’t.

 

Alexander’s face softened as he approached the Throne. “My apologies, my friend. I have shown an appalling lack of manners.”

 

“What do you want? What do you actually want?” Maxwell spat.

 

Alexander was quiet as he took a step further. He was almost close enough to loom over his seated form. “What does anyone want?”

 

He reached out a hand to a shadowy protrusion from the Throne, and followed it down, to the manacle that surrounded Maxwell’s wrist. He watched it pulse with his heartbeat. Then, his eyes shot up to Maxwell’s.

 

“You’re trapped in this world.”

 

“Well, I’ll be damned. What tipped you off, pal?”

 

Alexander’s eyes were so sharp he could taste blood.

 

Finally, he looked away. His hand grazed against Maxwell’s own as he moved back.

 

Somewhere off in the darkness, They growled.

 

“Perhaps it is time to awaken,” Alexander muttered.

 

“I’ll say,” Maxwell said, but he was awake.

 

The throne room was empty as ever before him.

 

 

 


	3. Badinage

 

 

 

 

 

Maxwell had to give himself credit where it was due. He’d at least tried to let it pass. Let bygones be bygones. This psychological tomfoolery was beneath him. If he responded in kind, he would be playing right into Brennenburg’s inexplicably well-manicured, dexterous, masculine, perfect, perfect hands.

 

He sighed, and took a moment to refocus. He cast a look about and yes, the throne room was indeed the same old same old. The ragtime played on. And on. And on. And on. He tried telling himself what he always told himself, that it was no different to tuning out the other acts, night after night after matinee after night after matinee. One just got on with it, did one’s breathing exercises, and waited for one’s cue to the stage.

 

Brennenburg was getting too much real estate in his mind. Maxwell wasn’t even sure what this game between them was—for he realised that it had indeed become so. He didn’t know why he bothered trying to push the man. To what—the Throne, and his ticket to freedom? He wasn’t about to hold his breath—Brennenburg seemed to have no interest in the Adventure. And besides.

 

There were others. He hadn’t checked on Higgsbury in a while, which was unusual. For a long time, he had been his safest bet.

 

He tuned in to Higgsbury.

 

Higgsbury, sporting a most dashing beard, was sprinting away from a Tallbird, clutching an egg as he tried to navigate the snow. For some reason, most of the trees around him were on fire. He tripped. The Tallbird caught up. The inevitable happened. Again.

 

He tuned out. Higgsbury had been his safest bet.

 

Again, he sighed. He supposed the best tragedies had always been the comedies gone awry. Or was that the other way round? Sometimes Higgsbury made it almost all the way. This wasn’t it. Most of the time, he died in ways so stupid he was sure it was part of Their design.

 

He decided to check on the contender he liked to refer to as Gerry the Idiot. He had pretty much come with the place. Maxwell had no idea how long he had been a slave to Their mercy, but watching him had never failed to amuse him.

 

Gerry—so-named due to his constant cursing, screaming and sobbing in German when things went wrong, videlicet all the time—had no interest in anything but the ‘magicks’, as Brennenburg had called them. This constituted anything that was unfamiliar to the world outside. It was to the point that he neglected basic survival for cycles at a time.

 

Hence, ‘the Idiot’. Maxwell was unclear whether he carried over any knowledge from one death to the next. Sometimes it looked like he did. He seemed to have figured out a way to record some object lessons and leave them for himself to find.

 

Still, however, he kept trying to explore the dark. He kept digging up graves, and getting eaten alive by hounds. He kept drawing runes and symbols and getting gored by tentacles.

 

And, without fail, every time he found the Door, he would shrink away from it at first, only to follow up—if he lived long enough—by going nuts with the runes and symbols, and chanting in tongues. Tinkering with it. He would then begin slaughtering things and boiling their blood. Sometimes he would strip off, and yell random words. Once, he thought he saw him talking to it. Nuts. Then, inevitably, either Charlie or the hounds, but often the cold, would catch up with him. Sometimes, Maxwell would ‘make’ something catch up with him, out of either mercy or boredom, depending on Gerry’s place on the scale of desperation as opposed to tediousness—and what sort of mood Maxwell was in. It was shooting fish in a barrel, at that point.

 

At first, when he had been new to this gig, Maxwell had been disquieted. Then, he had been frustrated—if he was so interested in the damn Door, why didn’t he try going through it?

 

These days, he found it fucking funny.

 

People on the outside had talkies, now. The Idiot almost made up for that. He watched Gerry make a right pig’s ear of it for a while. Death by spider. Death by Charlie. Death by Charlie. Death by Charlie. Death by—again. For once, it didn’t cheer him up.

 

After Brennenburg, they all seemed clumsy. Common. Inept. Drab. And Brennenburg managed it all while looking like—that.

 

And as for Maxwell—he was trapped. And Charlie was—whatever Charlie was. And there was nothing he could do about any of it.

 

Before despair could take hold, he tuned in to Brennenburg. He wanted to see what he was doing.

 

He was shaving. With an ivory-handled straight razor, in front of a mirror, outside. He was using boiled water and—was that Nightmare Fuel? And where had he found a mirror? Also, it was positively Arctic out. Contenders who could grow any kind of beard, did.

 

The blade made its way up Brennenburg’s strong jawline. Up his long neck.

 

Nothing to see here, Maxie, Maxwell told himself. Come on now.

 

He was about to tune out when Brennenburg turned his head, as though he’d heard something. He then looked up—and somehow, made eye contact with Maxwell’s omniscient view, which should have been impossible because it was metaphysical, in no way tangible, not real.

 

Brennenburg smiled.

 

Maxwell retreated, eyes back on the shadows of the throne room.

 

He tried to wait it out. Tune into Gerry. Let some time pass, in the strange way that it did around here. He did so. A little. His fingers drummed at the armrest of the Throne.

 

Oh God. Could Brennenburg see him watching him all along? Had he just waited until now to let on?

 

As a showman, Maxwell held many skilful illusions, but in none of them did he put himself above the indulgence of anger. A man had to have boundaries; one could say he had become habituated to his.

 

That was it. The dream. Now this. This was personal. A man had his dignity to maintain. This called for reprisal. Of some sort.

 

Whatever he’d tried to visit upon Brennenburg from the Throne had been well-met. Perhaps messing with his environment alone was simply not enough.

 

Fuming, he appeared at Brennenburg’s camp with the full intention of giving him a good what-for.

 

“Now see here, Brennenburg,” he said in a voice he’d measured as booming, yet composed, projecting a strong presence, summoning all his stagecraft. He took a deep breath through what he liked to think was his most threatening grin, and almost choked on air that could strip paint.

 

Brennenburg turned from the contraption he was tending to with an entirely too-innocent look on his face, giving Maxwell a carefully schooled rictus that screamed ‘caught in the act’. “How do you do?”

 

Maxwell coughed, rage dissipating, unlike the fumes. Brennenburg was looking the absolute prime article in his black fur cape, worn over hunting leathers. Purple gems glittered about his person, and evil flowers were braided through his hair. For a moment, he forgot what he was going to say, and indeed the purpose of this visit.

 

Then, Brennenburg raised an eyebrow at him, and the rage crept back in, half-heartedly, together with annoyance that the sight of Brennenburg could hit that switch in him.

 

He scowled. “What are you doing."

 

“A little something for winter warmth,” Brennenburg said, face spreading into a madman’s grin. His teeth were disconcertingly even. He turned back to the machine, carefully ladling its contents into a glass bottle. The liquid was orange-tinted. “Behold. My very own carrot vodka.”

 

“Jesus, Brennenburg,” and he couldn’t help that he was less angry. Call it the first prospect of booze in however long. Then, against every instinct: “Have you tested this yet?” He could practically taste it through the fumes. It was not likely to be great, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

 

“No, no, I thought you might like to do the honours.”

 

Maxwell crossed his arms. So this was a peace offering, he gathered. However: he may have made some foolish decisions in life, but he wasn’t stupid.

 

“How do I know you’re not trying to poison me?”

 

Brennenburg moved across the camp, towards him. That one small spider was looking at him from the door of the stone structure. Come to think of it, the camp felt emptier than usual, of both the living and undead. Strange.

 

He ignored it all for the sound of Brennenburg’s voice.

 

“Because, my dear, you’re no good to me dead, are you now?” Brennenburg said, a couple of yards away, and Maxwell had to focus on the Nightmare Amulet at the clasp of his cape as he lifted the bottle to eye-level in a toast. “All that aside. With strange aeons even death may die.”

 

He raised the bottle to his lips, and took a drink. He pulled a face as he swallowed, wincing. “Oh, blazes, that’s the stuff. That’ll poison you alright. In a manner.”

 

Maxwell sighed. “Let’s have some, then.”

 

“What’s the magic word?” Brennenburg smirked, even as he passed the bottle over. Maxwell very nearly started. He couldn’t know, could he…?

 

He frowned, and unceremoniously took a deep swig. Which was a big mistake.

 

“Fuck, Brennenburg, goddamn you weren’t joking.”

 

“Ease up,” Alexander said. “Although, you are right, it’s not a sipping drink.”

 

He would never say it, but he was almost grateful. His subjects couldn’t usually afford to get sozzled, even if they’d known how. An iota of resultant carelessness would cost their lives. He would never understand why They let him manifest as many cigars as he wanted, but alcohol seemed to be out of bounds. It was just one of those things; just like he couldn’t control the distribution of Nightmare Fuel.

 

He drank a little more, before passing the bottle back. “You’d make an absolute killing in bootlegging.”

 

“Oh, I have,” Alexander said with that deranged little smirk. “It’s always a useful skill.”

 

They stood there for a while, passing the bottle back and forth. It wasn’t exactly the done thing—and a little unbecoming—to be drinking with one of his subjects, Maxwell thought, but at this point, he’d conceded to himself that nothing about his life amounted to conventional. Besides, he made the rules. Ish.

 

This was fine. He told himself it was the booze. Not the company.

 

“So, uh,” Maxwell said, pulling out a cigar as he watched Alexander’s grip on the neck of the bottle, “you sure do seem to have a very particular set of useful skills.”

 

“Oh?” Alexander took another dainty swallow. Damn.

 

“Man offers a man a drink. Making conversation is simple courtesy, I believe.” It was getting more difficult to tear his eyes away. Maxwell dipped his head to light his cigar.

 

Alexander nodded, considered. He gave a laugh that sounded more like a bark. “This isn’t the first time I've started from nothing, and in lands more terrible and primitive than this."

 

“Some story, I’ll bet.”

 

“You could say that.” Alexander moved closer, holding the bottle to Maxwell’s chest. “Your accent is slipping, by the way.”

 

Maxwell took it, hand lingering over Alexander’s for a moment. “Point taken, pal. So what’s the occasion?” he said, making sure his vowels were flat, moving his head to the side to exhale the smoke away from Alexander.

 

“Hang on, your cravat’s all askew,” and Alexander was doing something to his tie. Maxwell wondered if he was really such a lightweight or if this was a cultural thing. There was a tree-trunk at Maxwell’s back. He wasn’t sure when that had happened. Not that he was about to back down. He stood there awkwardly, with one hand holding the bottle, and the other his cigar, as Alexander attempted to make sense of his half-Windsor.

 

He didn’t want to think on how long it had been since he had last been touched. How warm human touch could be.

 

“Fine last I looked.” He cleared his throat. “Call ‘em ties where I’m from.”

 

“You do now? Aren’t you a funny man,” he crooned. A raptorial smile crossed his face as he took his hands away, only to retrieve the bottle from Maxwell.

 

“The occasion?” Maxwell stumbled on his words. Alexander had not taken a step back.

 

“Oh, that.” Alexander blinked up at him, voice a purr, innocent as anything. “You said to get back to you when I had something harder to offer you.”

 

Maxwell swallowed. “I believe the word I used was ‘stronger.’”

 

“I know what I said.”

 

Maxwell took a drag from his cigar, eyes level with the black petals wound in Alexander’s hair. He wasn’t thinning, or receding, or anything. What an arsehole. “Are you trying to get me soused and take advantage of the situation?” It smacked of innuendo, which he hadn’t intended, but neither did he mind. The vodka was making him rather too warm.

 

Alexander laughed. He still wasn’t moving away. That Nightmare Fuel did give a very close shave. A hand went back to Maxwell’s tie. “No, my dear. I don’t think I would need to. And besides”—his eyes positively undressed him—“it would require more to take on, ah, excuse me—affect, someone of your size.”

 

Now: at the end of the day, Maxwell was a simple, red-blooded man. Usually, he was more than all right with that. Usually.

 

“You bet your ass, sweetheart,” he murmured in a manner he hoped was intimidating.

 

“Don’t think I wouldn’t.” Brennenburg patted his tie. His voice rumbled through him, thick and dark.

 

OK. Wow.

 

Maxwell became hyperaware that he was, in essence, trapped. This had been a bad idea. But backing down would be a William Carter thing to do. Weak. He watched Alexander’s eyes follow the ash dropping off the end of his cigar.

 

Perhaps a change of tactics was in order.

 

“What else you got for me, baby?”

 

Damn it.

 

“Hmm?”

 

He could count those teeth. There were too many. “To drink.”

 

“Funny that you should ask,” Alexander said, moving his hand away to reach for something from under the cape, putting the bottle down in the snow. Maxwell found that he wasn’t as relieved at the loss of contact as he would have liked. “And rather presumptuous. Though I do suppose you are my new King.”

 

Maxwell inhaled on his cigar, squinting at Alexander through the smoke. “I’m all ears.”

 

“Let’s see… the berry wine isn’t ready yet. It’s foul at the moment. And it is going to take a fair bit of experimentation”—a hand returned to rest, palm flat, at Maxwell’s lapel, teasing at the boutonnière—“until I can concoct a good whiskey. But there’s this special brew I made for myself, a little bit of a, you might say”—he gave him the old up and down, eyes sticking on their way up—“a bonne bouche. A delicacy from my homeland, which I can only make in small quantities, and in approximation of the original recipe.” Their noses were almost touching. “I could offer you some of that.”

 

“Honoured,” Maxwell said, making sure to stay still and not blink. It was like facing down a cobra. A sex cobra. “What is it?”

 

“It’s a type of,” Alexander breathed, and Maxwell felt it on his own lips, “rose liqueur. Just something sweet. For some pleasure on those cold nights alone.”

 

Existing was taking all of his concentration. Staying in place was an Olympic effort. He’d never seen eyes like that before. Hypnotic. “You know, I think I’ll give it a try.”

 

“Excellent.”

 

As Alexander took half a step back to raise a small hip-flask, Maxwell seized the opportunity to take a deep breath, disguised as a full draw on his cigar. He tried to order all the Crown Colonies in his head alphabetically. He had the beginnings of an erection, and that usually helped to make it go away. Not that he’d needed to use those kinds of tricks in decades.

 

While he was doing that, Alexander unscrewed the hip-flask with care, and poured a thimbleful into the cap. He held it up to Maxwell, who tossed his cigar aside as he took it. Their fingers brushed.

 

“Here’s to you.”

 

“Yeah, cheers.” It was pink, and had a strong smell of roses. He shivered. The snow stretched ahead for miles.

 

Alexander watched him as he raised it to his lips, slow. Alexander watched him, closer, unblinking, holding his breath as Maxwell drank, and Maxwell realised his mistake as soon as he swallowed.

 

He crushed down his instinctual panic. No, act normal. It was impossible for him to die here, in this form—something he had long since verified through trial and error. He was not afraid of dying, anyhow. But something about Alexander suggested that he was familiar with a host of things worse than death. Or living.

 

“Pretty alright. A little too sweet for me,” he said, nonchalant.

 

Alexander’s eyes flicked to the cap as he handed it back to him, then to Maxwell, then back to the cap again.

 

“Something a little different, at least,” he muttered, putting the hip flask away. He stretched out one hand to the tree-trunk behind Maxwell, and leaned in again. “Now, my dear, what’s my name?”

 

At this, Maxwell snapped. He used the momentum to flip them around, slamming Alexander against the tree, one hand at his waist, the other at his neck.

 

“Alexander von Brennenburg,” he growled down at him, and Alexander’s eyes widened, his breath coming in small gasps. “That’s your name, wiseguy. Now. What was that.”

 

“That was just, ha, just some rose liqueur that—”

 

“Horseshit. Why don’t you spit it out, sweetheart? Obviously whatever you tried to pull didn’t work,” he hissed, voice rough and barely human. He had allowed Them to add some muscle to his presence, his forearms turning shadowy, his teeth sharp against his tongue.

 

Alexander was trying to compose himself. He could feel his lithe body move against his, fur cape soft underneath his now-taloned hand. One of Alexander’s legs was wound about his own, from when he had twisted them around, and one arm had landed around his shoulder. They were pressed against each other, foreheads very close.

 

“Just a little something to clear your mind. Not the whole way, mind. Just enough for me to,” Alexander swallowed, “Ah.”

 

“For you to what?” He let Them retreat slightly. They went, but only because They were already bored. His vision cleared by a measure.

 

“Understand a little more,” his breath was warm on his mouth, “Get in. Deeper.”

 

Maxwell narrowed his eyes. His hand about Alexander’s throat tightened. Alexander sighed, and Maxwell felt him shiver, felt the pulse beat in his neck. His other hand tightened on Alexander’s side. Bones.

 

Also—why yes, yes that was an erection. Against his own. Well.

 

Maxwell cleared his throat.

 

“I have to see a man about a dog.”

 

Alexander opened his mouth, but Maxwell disappeared himself before he could be subjected to whatever further lunatic nonsense.

 

Before he did or said something he would regret.

 

He needed to think about this.

 

 

*

 

 

And now he had an erection on the Throne, where he couldn’t do anything about it, nor would he want to—he didn’t relish the thought of eternity covered in his own come. He bet They thought it was hilarious. Mercifully, Throne erections were rare. Not much to get excited about here—even when Higgsbury took his shirt off.

 

No, focus.

 

He tended to like a pretty young thing, and Brennenburg was passing old, but he'll be damned if he couldn't take his eyes off him. He himself was no spring chicken anymore, either. He usually went for a choice bit of calico, but he hadn’t ruled out the odd fella. Showbiz, after all. He was not some green girl. Besides, it somehow felt less disloyal to Charlie than lusting after some broad would have, though he doubted Charlie would want anything to do with him any more. How he missed her.

 

Lord above, he hadn’t gotten laid in so long.

 

No, focus.

 

Right. Right. He liked to think that this whole caboodle was a gentleman’s sport. If Brennenburg wished to broaden the parameters—add to the rules of engagement, as it were—he might as well respond in kind.

 

Whatever he’d been duped into drinking didn’t appear to have any immediate effect. With luck, there would be no effects at all. He felt no different than usual.

 

And the whole thing hadn’t been an act leading to that point, either. Maxwell knew acts. Back there, when he’d had him pressed to the tree like that—that hadn’t been fear in Brennenburg’s eyes. It had been naked hunger. And hunger left unfed was starvation. And starvation was where things got interesting.

 

He had no idea to what end he was allowing himself to engage in this. His mind couldn’t afford to be dragged into Brennenburg’s madness. However, he refused to be the one to fold, even if he didn’t stand to gain—especially if Brennenburg wasn’t planning on heading to the Throne.

 

But this was something different. He was something different. And he seemed to think he could find a way out. Maxwell couldn’t fall for hope. That would be an amateur mistake. He alone knew what an efficient form of torture that was.

 

He was far too old and tired for all these games.

 

But sometimes, it was fun to play.

 

 

 

 


	4. Phantasmagoria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a dandy in the ghetto with a snow-white smile  
> Super-ego bitch, I've been evil awhile  
> [-(s)AINT, Marilyn Manson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anEMXOyCCqc)
> 
>  
> 
> .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The music hall held its breath. Publican Sam had been wiping the same glass for the last five minutes. Jack’s agitated voice cut through the dusty silence from backstage. William sat at the bar, staring down at his script.

 

It was a typical New York spring out, muggy and noisy, stuffed with potential punters and hustling crowds. William wouldn’t have minded losing himself in one just then.

 

Both he and Sam looked up when the door slammed. It was the ticket girl. She was laden with signs and posters, her messenger bag bulging. She looked from them, to the direction of Jack’s voice, and sighed, making her way past the chair-stacked tables to the bar.

 

“And here I thought this was a day to celebrate.” She set everything down, stuffed her flat cap into her shapeless coat, and perched on a bar stool a couple down from William. He squinted down at Antony’s death scene, at the jarred meter behind every line, but her sleek dark bob chewed at his peripheral vision. If she was aware of the tension in the room, she was ignoring it. “Publican Sam. I’ve earned my gin for today.”

 

Sam shot a look towards the stage, a clatter resounding from somewhere beyond, as of an expensive office telephone being manhandled.

 

“Oh?”

 

He poured three.

 

“Yeah.” She tugged her scarf away from her face, revealing her mouth. “I managed to sell out for the night. Standing room only. You’d think we had Houdini or something.” She took the gin and downed it.

 

William dropped the text down on the bar and stood, cursing.

 

“What’s the matter with him?”

 

“Have your drink, William, it’s on me,” Sam called. He turned back to the ticket girl. “What’s the matter is that this Antony has no Cleopatra.”

 

“She run away back to Egypt?” She threw a glance back at William. He was pacing.

 

“Carnegie Hall. Better offer. Took half the cast with her,” said Sam.

 

“Golly. Can’t blame her. Hey Shakespeare, you going to drink that?”

 

They were sold out for opening night, and they had no cast. They were sold out, they had no cast, and most of William’s remaining pittance had been tied up in this production. He could be ruined. Further ruined. He might even have to write to his brother again. Maybe even his wife, perish the thought. He walked to the bar in a daze and drained his glass. He took a deep breath, making eye contact with the gin bottle on the shelf. “What was that?”

 

“Shakespeare,” she said, still seated, drawing it out as she looked up at him. “Thought your name was William. Carter. Unless the posters are all wrong.”

 

“They certainly are now, dear. We’re missing half the names,” William said, and almost flinched when he threw a glance at her. Wasn’t she pretty, smiling at his misfortune like that. “What did you say yours was?”

 

“I don’t think I did say, governor,” she said, imitating his accent. Her glee in teasing him was transparent. He turned to respond, but nothing came to him. William Carter, seasoned thespian, was at a loss for words.

 

They were interrupted by the chink of glasses as Sam bristled and retreated to the storeroom, just as Jack barrelled into the hall. “Alright. Alright. Look. I’m calling in some favours. It’ll be fine. We’re fine. It’s not like we’re sold out for tonight.”

 

“Who were you yelling at back there?” asked the ticket girl. “Also, we’re sold out for tonight. I must have a million dollars in nickels and dimes over here. Everyone’s coming for Clarisse.”

 

Jack turned ashen. William fussed with the script.

 

“There’s no Clarisse,” Jack cried. “There’s—ah, damn, pardon me, but damn. Sam, where are you. Get me a drink.”

 

Sam reappeared, Jack drank, and William stared at the far wall. There went his career. He would have to go back to shouting out monologues for loose change in Times Square. He didn’t even have enough left to stowaway on a transatlantic.

 

“I mean, I can get some of the other parts, no problem, play’s a repertoire mainstay,” Jack said, on the verge of tears. “And a few can double up. But where exactly am I going to get a lead at such short notice?”

 

The ticket girl cleared her throat. “Hey mister. Just so happens I know the part pretty well. I’ve been reading.”

 

William sighed and lit a cigarette. His cuff needed straightening. For once, he ignored it.

 

Jack laughed, with an edge of hysteria. “Our very own Cleopatra of Brooklyn.” He paused to wipe away tears. “Oh goodness, Charlotte, thanks, I needed that. Lord above.”

 

She narrowed her eyes. “It’s Charlie.”

 

In years to come, Maxwell would look back and suspect this was the moment this whole thing started. How fitting, that it all began with a tired old cliché. At least those were easy to remember.

 

A bar stool crashed to the floor as Charlie jumped up onto the bar. “Sir, I will eat no meat, I’ll not drink, sir.” She spoke in Received Pronunciation. “If idle talk will once be necessary, I’ll not sleep neither. This mortal house I’ll ruin, do Caesar what he can.”

 

Jack opened his mouth to interject, raising his hand holding the glass. Charlie seized it and threw it across the room, where it shattered. Sam and William jumped.

 

“Know, sir, that I will not wait pinioned at your master’s court, nor once be chastised with the sober eye of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up and show me to the shouting varletry of censuring Rome?” She stood tall, an imperious arm stretching over the men gathered below. Bending down, she held Jack’s face up by the chin. “Rather a ditch in Egypt be gentle grave unto me. Rather on Nilus’ mud lay me stark naked,” she whispered onto his lips, “and let the waterflies blow me into abhorring.” She stood once more, letting go of a shaking Jack with disdain. “Rather make my country’s high pyramides my gibbet,” she said with disarming stillness, “and hang me up in chains!”

 

She stalked down the bar to grab William’s cigarette from his hand, stole its last puff, and threw it into his glass, where it fizzled out.

 

Silence fell. William’s heart pounded. He exchanged a look with Sam.

 

Then came Jack’s laughter, now bright and radiant. He slapped the surface of the bar. “Well damn me thrice, sweetheart. What do I know.” Jack stretched out his hand, and she squeezed it. “The show goes on. Let’s do the Queen of the Nile proud.”

 

Charlie beamed as she made her way down from the bar.

 

They began discussing percentages and ticketing in hushed voices. William lit another cigarette, throwing the match into his glass to join the stolen stub. It hissed. “Accent needs work,” he muttered around the cigarette. “Sam, could do with another in a clean glass.”

 

Sam ignored him, grumbling as he walked past with a dustpan and brush. Charlie went quiet and turned from Jack. She stalked towards William, crowding him until he looked at her. As he made eye contact, she snatched the cigarette right out of his mouth. “What was that, you big limey bastard?” She closed her lips around the filter, smirking on the inhale. Jack laughed.

 

“I,” William started, trying to look anywhere but her mouth. “I suppose I could assist. If you so required. Which you, strictly speaking, may not, however.” She exhaled the smoke, without turning her head from him. “Definitely. But in the case that you may wish to, it.”

 

Jack appeared at his side then, clapping him on the back, rescuing him. “That’s the spirit. What a team we make. If a black man can direct Shakespeare now days, a girl from Brooklyn can be Cleopatra. Us two and this miserable limey bastard.”

 

William nodded at him in gratitude. He found himself smiling, for once. He might now have a hope of recouping something.

 

Jack began to make his way backstage. “By the way, Bill, you’ll have to double up as Enobarbus.”

 

“What? How could I possibly?” William sputtered.

 

“I don’t know, do a different accent. Cut things out. Wear a hat. You’re the showman.” He smiled. “Now go practice or something,” he called over his shoulder.

 

Charlie hadn’t moved. She squinted at him as she finished smoking, adding the cigarette to the pile of detritus in his glass.

 

“Come,” Charlie said, winking at William, and gave one last exhale. He breathed in her smoke. He felt his mouth go dry. “Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me.”

 

 

*

 

 

Opening night was a roaring success. So was the rest of the week.

 

Charlie was extraordinary. She commanded the room in her gold lamé dress. She ruled over Egypt, and their corner of New York, with an iron fist. Her grasp over Antony was absolute. The nobility in her fall inspired night after night of applause, seizing the devotion of an audience notorious for its fickle inattention.

 

William found he had never been a more convincing Antony.

 

The second act. They had somehow worked around the impossible double-casting by merging the role of Antony and Enobarbus into one for the scene; in others, they’d given the latter’s lines to different parts. It didn’t make complete sense, but they were not performing to a panel of scholars.

 

“When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.”

 

That, and nobody was looking at him, in any case. Charlie had remained onstage. Her curled hair and shapely curves were misdirection enough in the face of any textual inconsistency.

 

“The barge she sat in,” William continued, the crowd rapt in sharing his awe, “like a burnished throne, burned on the water,” he paused, faltered, as something rippled through him.

 

Jack—himself stepping in as Agrippa—noticed, and jumped in to prompt him. “Purple were the sails, and so perfumed that the winds were love-sick with them.”

 

Charlie sat upstage in her throne. William looked away from her to nod at Jack. “Aye, the oars were silver, which to the tune of flutes kept stroke”—he drew in a breath, as something stabbed at his mind—“and made the water which they beat to follow faster”—it came in again, acute, and he couldn’t stop a small noise of pain from escaping—“as, as amorous of their strokes.”

 

Jack was staring at him.

 

“For her own person, it beggared all description—”

 

William stared back at Jack, then at the rest of the audience. They were all frozen still. Maxwell looked down at the boards. At himself—he was Maxwell. The grand clock over the bar was silent. The second hand did not move.

 

Heels clicked. He turned to see Charlie stand. She held up a gloved hand. Stared at it. She walked centre stage—there was a strange fluidity to her movements, like someone walking on land after an age at sea. Overcompensating to a different centre of gravity. He watched her stare at her reflection in the large mirrors hanging around the bar area.

 

“Hm. It worked,” she muttered, running a hand over a round hip. “Oh, that’s different.”

 

“What.” That’s it, Maxwell thought, he’d lost his mind. Damn it all, They were welcome to it.

 

They? New York? Was this another dream?

 

The frozen faces of the audience were grotesque, contorted into parodies of appreciation and wonder. Jack stood, trapped in a masque of concern.

 

“Goodness,” she said, beholding herself in admiration, so unlike her, and the inflection of her voice was wrong. Softer. “I ought to ask the spiders to make me a gown just like this one. Heavenly material.”

 

That was her voice, but not her words. Those were her eyes, her lips. Her body. Sinuous, but not in a way that belonged to her. All wrong.

 

It couldn’t be. It had to be.

 

Maxwell growled. “We’ve been through this, pal. I warned you.”

 

“Have we?” Charlie—Alexander. Alexander slithered up to him. “Whatever shall I do?”

 

“We’re done here. I don’t have time for this.” Maxwell turned, and tried to remove himself. Somehow. It was either a dream, and he would wake up, or it wasn’t, and—

 

He didn’t know.

 

Nothing happened.

 

“As it happens,” Alexander said, taking rather too much joy in how Charlie’s voice wrapped around, and cut off, the vowels and sibilants, “This is a play I know quite well.”

 

Everything was familiar. This whole scene. Maxwell controlled his breathing, and tried not to let it show. This was too. How much had he seen? How much did he know? It dawned like a slap in the face.

 

Alexander could not know about Charlie. He could not find out what had come before Maxwell.

 

“Yeah, you and every other halfpenny actress with delusions of grandeur.” He stepped into Alexander’s space, ignoring that it was Charlie’s scent, the same scent he had first discovered later that day, her thighs bracketing his hips at the dressing room table, that dress Alexander liked so much thrown about her waist as Maxwell’s mouth moved from her neck, lower, to worship between her legs. He grit his teeth and blinked it back. “This tramp was no different,” he forced himself to say. He missed her.

 

“Why Maxwell,” Alexander said, gripping his upper arm with a delicate hand. “I’m shockéd. That’s no way to talk to a lady.”

 

Maxwell leaned down. He grabbed Charlie’s—Alexander’s—hip, to push her, him, away, and he had to stamp down on all the memories of how her curves had felt to his touch, how surprised he had been when he had first seen her in a dress, out of her typical boyish garb. “You’re no lady.”

 

Charlie’s grin, with Alexander’s edge of madness. He did not back down. Maxwell had known he wouldn’t.

 

“I’ll ask you one more time,” he said, careful to keep his voice even. He hadn’t moved his hand away. “What do you want?”

 

Alexander’s eyes roamed over his face. “She makes hungry where most she satisfies.”

 

“Enough.”

 

“That is your line, is it not? I’d venture you more as Octavius than Enobarbus, a principal at least. Old Julius, definitely, yes, in the other play. I can’t imagine you with the breadth of pathos for Antony, but—”

 

“I said enough,” Maxwell repeated, teeth grinding, his grip tightening, his other hand finding Alexander’s neck.

 

“And here we are,” Alexander—giggled?—and Maxwell couldn’t think that this was Charlie, that this wasn’t Charlie, or he would be lost. “Perhaps more of an Antony than first I thought.”

 

Maxwell let go, but didn’t step back. He shook his head. “For vilest things become themselves in her.”

 

Alexander caught his breath. Maxwell caught himself staring at Charlie’s lips. Imagining how they had felt against his that day. How different they would feel with Alexander’s temperament.

 

“I’ve been rude, again,” Alexander said, “I am too prone to amusement, lately, I’ve found. Self-restraint has not served me too well, in the past.” His hand wrapped around Maxwell’s, lifting it to his lips. Maxwell let him. “You asked me what I want. The answer is disappointingly banal, I’m afraid.”

 

“Go ahead, since I’m still in a toga.”

 

“Home.” His lips ghosted against Maxwell’s knuckles. “Freedom.”

 

“Won’t you look at that, you’re actually right,” Maxwell sneered, tugging his hand back to his side. He caught his eyes from dragging down Charlie’s body. How he longed to touch her, with tenderness, as he once had. But Alexander couldn’t know who she was. What she meant. “Disappointing. And not a damn thing to do with me.”

 

Alexander pulled forward a little. “You’re right. Must all be a coincidence. A cosmic joke.”

 

“I don’t see anybody laughing.” Maxwell looked around at the frozen crowd, at Jack, then back at Charlie’s form, which was appraising him much in the way she had that night before accosting him in the dressing room. Much as she had with her heels jabbing at his waist.

 

Her arms encircled his shoulders, hands resting at the nape of his neck.

 

“Do you know,” Alexander murmured. “In good faith, I cannot remember the last time I had a woman.”

 

They were two mature gentlemen who wanted to fuck each other’s brains out. It was the hollowest provocation Maxwell had ever heard.

 

“Maybe you’ve had other things on your mind.”

 

She grinned, and for a moment he could almost be fooled that it was Charlie—and something in his head twinged as she looked at him, wrenched—

 

 

*

 

 

“We could leave, you know,” he said, tracing nonsense into her bare skin, “It’s been long enough. I could sell off my part in it and we could start our own thing. Me and you.”

 

She rolled onto her back. “Well. What about Jack?”

 

“Everyone wants to work for him.”

 

She reached around him to take a match and a cigarette from the bedside. She struck the match against her thigh. “Exactly.”

 

He watched her smoking. “Yeah, but stage is small potatoes. Nobody knows who you are. You’re just some Joe playing Caesar.” He wiped the match residue from her leg. “You ever see one of those circus trains go by? Now there legends dwell.”

 

She laughed. “Of course. Shoulda thought of that. I’ll be the bearded lady, and you?”

 

“Laugh all you want. Stage actors are a dime a dozen. Takes something more than that to stand out these days.”

 

He produced a rose from behind her ear.

 

“Takes magic.”

 

“Oh, Bill,” she said, with affection. She took the proffered rose from him. “I suppose it is just more of getting a prop from one side of the stage to the other without them noticing.”

 

“Misdirection,” he supplied. He hoped. If they did this, he could take a bigger cut than he took with Jack.

 

Charlie twirled the stem of the rose between her thumb and forefinger. She was in a world of her own, and she didn’t notice when her ash tipped into the bed.

 

Maxwell almost startled when she spoke, having fallen into his own lull.

 

“Suppose we’ll need those names they all seem to have. Charlie the Charming.” She giggled, and swung a leg around to straddle him, nearly throwing them both off balance, her cigarette almost jabbing into his shoulder. His arm went about her waist to steady her. “Bill the Brilliant. Wonderful William. Brilliant Bill.” She thrust at him, smirking. “The Well-Endowed Wonder.”

 

“No, not Bill.” He grinned up at her. He was happy. Damn it, he was. He’d be laughing all the way to the bank. “Maxwell,” he said, voice slipping into Transatlantic. “The Amazing Maxwell.”

 

She took a slow draw on her cigarette, watching him. “Alright, Maxwell,” she said and stubbed out her cigarette. She kissed him, thorough, and pushed him until he was on his back. His hand moved up her side. She could do whatever she wanted with him, and he’d let her. “Show me what else you can do.”

 

 

*

 

 

He was in between, somewhere, not New York, but he must have still been in New York, not in Liverpool, or London, somewhere other, a place in which the light shone through one side of him to the other, rifling through him like a stack of old playbills—

 

 

*

 

 

“How much longer is this leg?” Charlie rifled through their chest of props. Their train car was strewn with costumes and effects. “I can’t bear the sight of all those fields any more. I didn’t know that much corn existed in the entire world.”

 

“A while to go,” Maxwell said from the carriage door. They were at a rest stop. He leaned against the doorframe and smoked, and watched the endless blue and green. He spotted one of the fire-eaters, urinating into the field. He waved at Maxwell when he turned around. “We’re not even in Chicago yet.”

 

“Thank goodness for that, I miss the city.” She sat back on her heels, seeming to have given up the search.

 

“What were you looking for, anyway?”

 

She shrugged. “Pack of cards. Wanted to practice.”

 

He pulled one out from his inner pocket. “Use these.”

 

They fell silent. He turned back to the fields. The circus was taking too large a percentage, and he was worried the debt collectors would close in. If they broke away once they got to the Bay Area, then that would be something.

 

His head hurt, like something half-remembered but mostly forgotten. He took a deep breath. They were downwind of the elephants.

 

“Wait until we get to the southwest. I heard it’s nothing but hundreds and hundreds of miles of desert before San Francisco.” He ground his cigarette into the doorframe, and let it drop onto the rocky ground of the track. “Imagine that. Nothing but you, me, and the wasteland. Terra nova. Like some kind of Prospero.”

 

“Yeah, but was it really worth it for him in the end?” Charlie asked, distracted with counting cards. A rabbit screeched in its cage in the corner.

 

“Oh, but he was alone.” He smirked and turned to her.

 

She lowered the cards. “What’s England like? I’d love to see it someday.”

 

“You know, I was thinking,” Maxwell continued, as though she’d said nothing. “We need to go bigger. What if you tied me up and padlocked me in a water-filled cube? And you swallowed the key?”

 

“Don’t hold your breath,” she muttered down at the cards. “Houdini would come after us. If you want me to tie you up, just say so.”

 

“I think that would really get us international,” Maxwell said. She didn’t look up. “Think about it, if we could just—"

 

 

*

 

 

He was the parts of himself skimmed through, inspected, discarded like detritus, and he didn’t know where the light was coming from but it burned through him, through fumes of Fuel, in another memory, in another dream, and on a layer below this, or perhaps a layer above, the music dragged past, limping at dirge rhythm, and he caught a glimpse of Alexander looming over him at the throne, hands grasping about his manacles, bracketing him in, eyes glowing white—

 

 

*

 

 

“You ready, Charlie?”

 

She was bound at the wheel. They were at another stop, somewhere in the desert. Maxwell had rolled up his sleeves in the heat, and tried not to think too much. His head ached like something was crawling through it.

 

“As ready as I’ll ever be, Maxie. I still don’t think this is really magic.”

 

“But it’s spectacle! Danger! Glamour!” He said it as much for himself as he did for her, if not more so. He gestured dramatically, trying to cover up the spasm that ripped through him. “A beautiful damsel.”

 

“Oh do go on and pick up those knives, before I start going numb. Come on, I’m ready.”

 

Something tore at his head, and he turned, trying to hide it as a cough. There was a strange shift, like a pressure valve being released, and Maxwell looked down at the handful of throwing knives he now held, without a memory of picking them up. He looked at Charlie. The amusement and incredulity she had used to mask her nerves was replaced with confusion, and—when she spotted the knives—something like horror. It was inconsistent. She tugged at the restraints.

 

Some might say it was out of character, considering the premise of the scene.

 

Maxwell smirked. “Everything alright there, Charlie?”

 

“Yes, of course I’m fine, is there a reason I shouldn’t be?” She had gone pale. It would have distressed Maxwell, any other time.

 

“Not to worry, my dear.” He drew it out, voice low. Oh, sometimes, and only sometimes, it was good to be alive. “My aim is notorious. I have been known to drive Cockneys into debt at darts.” He twirled a knife in the air, and caught it without looking away from Charlie. “Are you sure everything is in order with you?”

 

“Of course it’s in order,” she said, looking about for an escape, trying to disguise the pulling of her limbs as stretching. “Of course, it’s all in order, straight on, straight as the Queen’s many aprons, God save he—”

 

She shrieked as a knife whizzed past, and lodged in the wheel right next to her face.

 

“That was a good one, wasn’t it?” Maxwell grinned. “I was worried I was out of practice.”

 

“Yes, but I think I’m tired now, I have a cramp in my leg darling, and it’s—” Another knife landed high between her thighs, and she gasped, and twisted in a way Maxwell would only expect from someone accustomed to having a cock and balls between their legs.

 

“What was that? I was too busy aiming.”

 

“Oh, you bastard. You know very well.” She bared her teeth.

 

Maxwell approached the wheel, and affectionately prodded the tip of her nose. “You keep giving yourself away. We’re on King Edward VII now.”

 

“Was that all? Now I’m not sure why you have a poor girl tied to a wheel as you throw knives at her, but you’ll understand I don’t fully,” Alexander rambled. Maxwell didn’t break his stare, smirking. “I don’t get a full say in where it lands, and I’m sure whatever parlour trick you are practicing here is very impressive, you are clearly quite skilled, but it is after all a trick—“

 

Maxwell placed a finger over Charlie’s lips, which silenced Alexander. His—or rather, Charlie’s—eyes were wild. “Illusion, Alexander. A trick is something a whore does for money.” He moved his hand away from Charlie’s mouth, slower than necessary, and moved back to throwing distance.

 

Charlie beamed as realisation dawned, and something lurched in both Maxwell’s head and his stomach. “Ha! At last! You called me Ale—“

 

The final knife lodged itself right between her eyes, and Alexander fell blessedly silent, slumping in the restraints.

 

Maxwell’s lips quirked in satisfaction. The sight before him was unsettling; he ignored it. This was only a—dream?

 

“Well,” he said to himself, pulling a comb from his jacket and raising it to his receding hairline, “Nothing like a bit of a comeuppan—“

 

 

*

 

 

The void lurched again, pulling him along, but now something flickered, dispersed, consolidated, as light through a prism.

 

“Fuck! You are such a prick!” The eyes again, glimpsed through a veil of shadow, the hands around his manacles now hoisting their owner back to standing.

 

He could identify the dirge as his good old ragtime. He could identify his mind as distinct. Something had knocked Brennenburg over. Had it been him? Maxwell shifted, tried to pull back before the colours could completely gather agai—

 

 

*

 

 

Charlie laughed in mock indignation.

 

“I’m a prick?” Maxwell said, “I thought you liked that about me—”

 

 

*

 

 

If he focused on the music, then those eyes would solidify, and then he’d be able to wrap his shadows around whatever it was, if he could—

 

 

*

 

 

Something ricocheted through him then, through him and them both, he hadn’t realised both existed here, in the middle of the desert, in the flaming wreckage. Their minds slipped, threading through an impossible moment in non-time, and now as then Maxwell was aware only of a small, solid mass at his side—

 

 

*

 

 

“Maxie, are you sure about that book?”

 

“I’ve been practicing, doll. You know you can trust m—

 

 

*

 

 

If he could just hold on to something intangible in that glow, and follow it when it flickered—

 

 

*

 

 

He was engulfed in shadows, choking on Fuel, everything gone, the stage gone, Charlie, where was—

 

 

*

 

 

He thought he heard someone shouting, or was it screaming, and it could have been him, and he spotted something—

 

 

*

 

 

Flashes of something, sparking darkness and Them, in his veins, drowning him with purpose, and her—

 

 

*

 

 

He was slipping. It was scrambling him, eating him from within. Her—

 

 

*

 

 

He saw the ones he would use and the ones who would in an infinity become him, their faces, twisted, the scientist, the strongman, the—fucking Gerry the Idiot—

 

 

*

 

 

Something staggered, a shock of sun momentarily intensifying, and it slipped through, slipped over, and halted, and he could grasp it now, he only needed to pull—

 

 

*

 

 

Maxwell’s teeth closed on something bony. He bit.

 

Whatever it was, he pulled down and through, and slipped below.

 

 

*

 

 

Here, he was a shadow stretched tall and sharp.

 

Before him was a shifting burst of light. It was so strong he couldn’t look right at it. The symbolism was sickening.

 

“Why in all the hells did you bite my hand, you complete loon?”

 

Alexander spoke it but he did not speak it, just as Maxwell heard it without hearing it. It was a ray of light that hit him, transferring the sentiment, translating in his mind.

 

“What,” he said, and was surprised when it came out normally. His body was smooth and not so much black as much as it was an absence. “Why in all the hells are you—doing whatever this is?”

 

“I told you,” the light slapped him a little. “You won’t listen.”

 

“Fine, fine, but—wherefore? Is this to do with the stuff I drank?”

 

“It helped.” The burst of light pulsed a little. “You’re the closest I can get. I cannot see Them directly. They would but scatter into nothing until I left.”

 

The rays patted at his body. They did not reflect when they touched him. Neither did they go through. There was no change to the blackness. Was he absorbing them? Maxwell put a hand to his chest. It plunged through, and were he in a Euclidean space he would have fallen on his arse.

 

“Right, right. And you think it could help us out of here?”

 

“Us.” The light clustered into itself, burned smugly. “You don’t half presume. Well, it could give me an idea as to how. And what.”

 

Maxwell sighed. His chest neither rose nor fell. “Do you think you might have asked me.”

 

The light pulsed again, incandescent, painful. “That would be the act of an unlearned fool. They Above would hear. And besides, I must admit”—the rays were stroking him now, soft and somehow sticky—“you have such a well-ordered mind. It’s remarkable, it’s, I’ve never, oh, I could, it’s just—”

 

Maxwell cleared his throat. The rays unglued themselves from him slowly as they retreated, and it struck Maxwell that it was odd that they concentrated themselves in this way, in this void. The light behaved in an uncanny way, in a way light did not, for surely it should have filled the space, reached the corners? Surely it would have dispersed him? He wondered what would happen if he reached into it.

 

“So you just thought you would take a quick look.”

 

The light shimmered, as though to scoff at him.

 

“Just thought you’d peek through at the life of a wandering performer.”

 

It flashed in warning.

 

“Just thought you’d walk in the footsteps of a magician, be privy to the moments, salacious, sublime, mundane and all, that make a great man.”

 

The light seemed to stretch and retreat, as though in hesitation.

 

“See, a magician guards his secrets jealously because they are embarrassingly obvious,” Maxwell said, looking as close to the light as he dared. “The mind tends to one direction, while I go the other—and now you’re looking for the wrong thing.”

 

“What on earth are you prattling on abo—ah, fuck,” Alexander started and halted as he realised his mistake, for Maxwell had seized onto the rays as soon as they made contact.

 

Every second was agony, but in every second he was restored, and he wouldn’t let go.

 

“See how you like it, you decrepit bastard,” Maxwell said, and pulled as he twisted himself into the rays, turning to look directly at the—

 

 

*

 

 

It was a whirlwind of colour and chaos, through which he could only discern movement. Energy. Here he saw though blind, a thousand thousand reverberations coursing through him, burning. There was running, and there was a chase, and he was still above as he was below with his feet pounding against great amber flagstones, orange glinting in his peripheral vision, and there it was, end of the road, great, nowhere left to run, at least it wasn’t as though they could execute him, what could they possibly do to the likes of him—

 

 

*

 

 

Something pushed, and Maxwell pulled it back. He could feel something tearing, glowing. They skipped.

 

 

*

 

 

And there was that little bastard Johann with his silver tongue and too-brilliant brain, too brilliant for the sun, however many eternities away, he could see him and what he would do to him when he found him so clearly it would blind and burn the eyes of an ordinary human right out of their skull—and it did—

 

 

*

 

 

Something nudged at him again, something he should have felt the first time, and Maxwell scaled the light with tendrils of shadow, hand over metaphorical hand as though it were rope, and he dropped through.

 

 

*

 

 

Reality stuttered, and the first thing that hit Maxwell was the mildew. His reflex was to cough, but he had no—jaw?

 

He looked about in alarm, or tried to, for he was blind. He was bound, bound to his mind, a brain in a body yet without. He tried to calm himself.

 

As he grew accustomed, he felt something there with him. Someone. Benign. Whoever it was, was surface-friendly. The world in which he was trapped had taught him to read the amicability of a presence. Whoever he was stuck next to would not hurt him. Yet he would not find out, as he was frozen in space. Just as Jack had been.

 

Slowly, it came to him. He could not see, but this body was psychically attuned. It was as good as sight. His other senses bled into form as he acclimatised.

 

In addition to the metaphysical ties, he also seemed to be bound to a wall. Candlelight spilled into darkness. Water drops splashed onto flagstones. The faint sound of whimpering, begging, praying broke through. He was in the alcove of a room scattered with boxes, with tables, on top of which were strewn tools, papers—and the form of a man, red silk back of a waistcoat turned to him. He seemed to be crouching over something. Or someone. His hair was a mess, half-slipped from its tie.

 

“Daniel—Daniel, for goodness sake, what did I say just this moment, don’t stop, now is a terrible time to stop, fuck, did I not tell you about that laudanum?“ Alexander went rigid. His back straightened. He looked left. Right. Left again. The arm that Maxwell could not see dropped from where it had been—somewhat higher than his lap—to the table. “Oh. I see.”

 

There was a stunned silence. Something in the shared space Maxwell found himself in felt like it was shaking from mirth. It sure wasn’t coming from him. “Caught you at a bad time?”

 

Alexander shrugged. “I did say. You cannot be in full control of where you land. I just so happen to lead a life full of excitement, and conquest,” he said with the distinct air of a man determined to save face. He shuffled, and squirmed, and struggled until he was on his feet. He grimaced down at this ‘Daniel’ as he straightened himself out. “Hm. That’s interesting.”

 

Maxwell was glad he could see nothing but the top of some brown hair.

 

“Yes, so.” Alexander said turned to him, dishevelled, debauched and shameless. He pulled the tie out of his hair, trying to salvage some decorum, although he couldn’t hide his somewhat impressive erection, tenting his trousers. “Nothing you haven’t seen before, I’m sure. Have you had your fun?”

 

“Listen, congratulations on finding a nice young man, treat him well, don’t, I don’t give a damn. Who the hell is this poor bastard I’m in?”

 

Alexander walked towards him, and looked at the body he was briefly inhabiting as if for the first time. His hair fell into his face.

 

“Somebody who is still getting his just deserts.”

 

Maxwell saw something flicker in his eyes. He decided to poke at it. “Do you make a habit of making it in plain view of him? Is that part of his penance? Hasn’t he been through enough?”

 

Alexander’s mouth quirked. “You have your parlour tricks. I have mine.”

 

“You remember what I said about tricks?” His current mind-mate cheered, reading the memory.

 

“Yes.” Alexander smirked. “I do. I would have said illusions if that was what I meant.”

 

“I’m not sure what this is,” Maxwell admitted.

 

Alexander sighed. “Thank you for briefly amusing Heinrich, at least.”

 

“Wait, can he—? Did the girl—?”

 

Alexander turned away. He glanced in the direction of Daniel. “Time is not an arrow. And in each mind is a world entire.”

 

A silence descended. Maxwell frowned, thinking. The mildew was getting to him. A scream broke through, spontaneous.

 

“Say, pal, this isn’t where you actually live is it? Don’t you at least have someone coming in to clea—”

 

“Enough!” Alexander lashed with his mind, a ray of light, and—

 

 

*

 

 

He was spinning through nothing, the place in between, until he managed to grasp the thing again, and he could hear the ragtime dirge, he could see the glow. Whatever it was, it seemed to respond to the way the man—Heinrich—thought, spoke. He used it to seize at a strand of void, stumbling like a new-born foal, and propelled himself along, over, above, into the glow—

 

 

*

 

 

—and back into his skin, the skin he inhabited in the first layer of his mind, bound to the Throne, Alexander crouching over him, hands gripping at his forearms, above the manacles. The glow was fading from his eyes. His face was covered in sweat, his hair damp. They were both panting, as though they had run a race.

 

They shared a bewildered look.

 

Alexander was shaking slightly, Maxwell noticed, as the man stood.

 

“Hm, that was. I think I’d best go and. Sit down. Somewhere.” Alexander stumbled away from the Throne. He almost lost his balance.

 

Maxwell smirked at Alexander’s loss of composure. He was responsible, and it felt good. He forced himself to take deep, even breaths. He was desperate for a cigarette, like the ones he had shared with Charlie. He was growing tired of cigars.

 

“Did you at least see what you needed to see, for all the trouble you went to?”

 

“I—possibly—you know—how do you know—?” Alexander all but threw himself back at him, squeezing his upper arm. He looked feral, eyes wide, hands trembling. “You’re not supposed to be able—how. Unless. Unless.”

 

Hoping his raised eyebrow belied the wild pounding of his heart, he looked up, and grinned at Alexander until his face hurt.

 

“Say, pal. You don’t look so good. You better find something to eat before night comes. Or. I knows a guy does vodka.”

 

The ragtime played on in two-four time.

 

Alexander’s teeth were chattering, though he was in layers of leather and furs. “We—we shall speak on this.”

 

Maxwell blinked, and the throne room was as it was, and Alexander was elsewhere, a layer removed.

 

He was alone, as alone as he could be, so close to the dark, yet far enough. His shoulders slumped, and he took a great, rattling breath, fingers releasing from their death-grip on the Throne’s armrests. He choked something back, gasping at stagnant air. He caught himself. Bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood, until he couldn’t contain what broke through, snapping into place, squeezing through edges jagged and sharp, bubbling black. It was rough, ugly, and ended on laughter. He couldn’t stop if he tried, and he laughed, and laughed, and laughed, until his throat ripped, until his howls turned hoarse and bestial.

 

Above, beneath, and throughout, Their eternal background drone halted. They stirred away from sleep, and shifted, fluttered. Unspooled. Closer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Antony and Cleopatra quotes from Shakespeare. “A magician guards his secrets[…]and now you’re looking for the wrong thing” is from The Prestige. Yet another quote taken from a tongue-in-cheek source; see if you can spot it.
> 
> Liberties taken with Maxwell's backstory. I played Don’t Starve before the release of any expansions or further lore, but this has always diverged from canon. Whatever that means in a sandbox game. ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts and comments welcome any time, whether here, or on tumblr @chanelpirate.
> 
> Next chapter coming soon.


End file.
